She gets away with everything
by Never the End127
Summary: There's only one person on the team who dares to tease the infamous leader, and only one person who everyone knows can get away with it.
1. Chapter 1

**Rating—T for some minor suggestive stuff.**

**Pairing—Dick&Babs (duh)**

**Summary—There's only one person on the team who dares to tease the infamous leader, and only one person who everyone knows can get away with it.**

**Disclaimer—I don't own YJ or any of its characters. (Again, duh.)**

**Author's note—Hello again! Thank you for all the nice reviews! I didn't know how to continue the last story, so I've decided to pick it up again shortly after Impulse joins the team, before Artemis dies. I'll be continuing this story with my own take on how the rest of the team finds out about Kaldur and the Reach and whatnot. I hope you enjoy! (Sorry for any mix-ups, I'm still struggling with this new computer. I don't have Microsoft, for some reason.)**

* * *

Everyone on the team knew, as soon as Nightwing was granted the position of team leader that Batgirl could have gotten away with anything short of murder.

It wasn't exactly favoritism. It wasn't like Nightwing let her do whatever she wanted. But the entire team, even some of the younger members had noticed that the intimidating, invincible boss seemed to have a soft spot for the red-headed bat.

"Hermano_,_ mira." Jaime said, nudging Impulse with his elbow. "Is there… something going on between those two?" He gestured towards Nightwing and Batgirl, who were having a heated debate in the middle of a debriefing.

"Uh…" Impulse shrugged, his mouth full of Cheese-doodles. "I really can't say. History books never really specified when—" He cleared his throat and busied himself with choking down half the bag of his snacks in record time. "I mean," he wiped his mouth on the back of his glove, "Do they look like a couple to you?" he gestured at the squabbling team members.

"Well, then why don't we just send a squad _around _the barricade?" Batgirl asked him, her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised in a very confident, patronizing manner.

"Because we don't have enough team members to fight in both Quarac _and_ Bialya." Nightwing said in a very stiff, clipped voice. "Thank you for your input though, Batgirl."

"We _would_ have enough team members if you weren't sending me, Karen, and Gar on a completely pointless mission against Captain Cold—_again_,"

"Alpha, your mission is to secure all known boom-tube hotspots and to locate Queen Bee while maintaining a _low profile_ in Quarac." Nightwing gave Connor and Cassie very knowing looks.

"Understood." Connor narrowed his eyes, and Cassie shuffled her feet. "Sure." She complied.

"Beta, your mission is to observe and attempt to locate Queen Bee as well. This is a recon mission. Do not engage." The whites of his domino mask narrowed when he glanced at Impulse, and he shot a worried look at Robin.

"Don't worry boss." Gar said proudly. "I've got the whole situation under control."

Nightwing's mouth curled up at the end in a very vague imitation of a smile. "I don't doubt it, Beast Boy." He said. "Everyone, dismissed."

As the debriefing room cleared out, Megan and Karen tried to suppress grins of amusement as Barbara muttered angrily about their leader, "…I never get the exciting missions… treats me like a child… I swear, the guy works with the batman for ten years, becomes leader of the team, and suddenly he thinks he's a _god_…"

Karen snickered into the back of her hand and Megan rolled her eyes. The two of them had known Barbara long enough to have worked out every detail of the two bat's friendship. And they weren't the only ones.

The week before, Nightwing had come in to work uncharacteristically late, apologizing, saying that he had been up all night on patrol. The whole team had been gathered in the kitchen for lunch, scrambling for food when he came in, because Megan was out, and the chaos that had followed made an alien invasion look preferable.

"Ouch! Someone stepped on my head! Who's stepping on me?" Garfield shrieked, somewhere from beneath the wrestling group of guys fighting over a box of graham crackers.

"Cassie… it was a good try…" Robin offered weakly, the fire extinguisher still locked firmly in his hands and hovering cautiously over the smoking frying pan.

"Mal, careful with that, that's hot." Karen ordered.

"Connor! Just because Megan and La'gaan decided to go out for lunch does not give you the right to steal pop-tarts from the rest of us. Just because you're sulky—"

"Not crash, man. Not crash at all."

"Okay, we can't go on like this." Karen yelled over the noise. "We're gonna starve."

"Has anyone seen Nightwing?" Barbara looked up from her book on her spot on the couch, away from the noise and confusion.

"Uh…" Mal frowned, his fist frozen in midair, about a foot away from Connor, who was still sulkily chewing on the frozen pop-tarts. "I think he was—"

_"Recognized, B-07, Nightwing."_

"Sorry I'm late, team." Dick said, straightening his dark glasses. He was still in his civilian garb, raking his hands through his thick, messy black hair in an attempt to straighten it.

"You look like you just rolled out of bed, boss." Cassie blurted out, her tone cheerful and friendly. She blushed. "I mean, that's a good thing. Your hair looks nice all messed up like that. I mean, not that there was anything wrong with it before…" Her voice trailed off under Robin's stare of confused disbelief.

"I uh—I was up all night patrolling." He said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Huh." Barbara muttered in disbelief from her spot on the couch. "Right."

"What was that, Batgirl?" Dick looked up, eyes blinking confusedly behind his glasses.

"I'm just saying that the whole 'I was up late patrolling,' excuse would have been a lot more convincing if you didn't have some girl's lipstick on your neck." She smirked up at him as Dick went slack-jawed in horrified disbelief.

"Bat—I—you—how could—Barbara!" He managed to choke out in a stunned, guttural voice.

"Me." Barbara replied sweetly, folding a bookmark between the pages of her novel and setting it down on the coffee table.

"It—it's not lipstick." He choked out.

"Really? Well, assuming you weren't having some sort of sloppy one-night stand that made you late for work, that red smudge on your neck has got to be the weirdest case of poison ivy that I've ever seen." Barbara replied smartly, crossing her arms over her chest.

There was dead silence. Everyone's jaw dropped, along with Connor's pop-tarts and Robin's fire-extinguisher. And then Mal started to laugh. His head was thrown back in an easy, shameless laugh that broke through the humiliated silence. And then Robin joined in, (more out of embarrassment for his brother than from actual amusement.)

"Girl!" Karen gasped, half mollified, half choked with laughter.

Even the corners of Connor's mouth were twitching.

"Barbara." Dick choked out. "I—you… but how… _Barbara_!"

Barbara put her hands up as if in surrender, getting to her feet. "Hey. I'm not the one who did the walk of shame into the cave and tried to pass it off as 'late patrol."

This was the final blow, stunning the team into complete speechlessness. Robin face-palmed, Karen gave a startled, gleeful little shriek, and Impulse, who had retrieved Connor's pop-tart off the floor and had been munching on it happily, choked so hard that he had to be hit on the back by Jaime, who soon thereafter stole what was left of Impulse's snack.

"Really Barb? In front of the kids?" Connor asked dryly.

Dick was still trying to form a coherent thought, clearing his throat and nervously running a hand through his hair. "Barb… I… uh—_hem_, that's—that's not…" He was actually _blushing_.

Barbara merely smirked, picking up her book and striding over to Dick. "Pick your jaw up, wing-nut, you'll catch flies." She said, putting her hand under his jaw and closing his mouth. Nightwing continued to stare as she ran her hand once through his unruly hair, almost affectionately before slipping out of the room, amused by the shouts of laughter and cries of applause that followed.

And that was definitely not the only time something like that had happened.

"How long do you think this is going to go on?" Megan asked, transfixed as the team watched Nightwing and Batgirl spar.

"Who knows?" Robin shrugged, grinning at Cassie. "Those two have a pretty weird way of flirting."

"You call that flirting?" Cassie said in disbelief as Dick dodged a very close kick from Barbara.

"Sure." Conner said, appearing at Cassie's elbow. "Look how much fun they're having."

"Give it up, BG!" Nightwing laughed, jumping out of her way. He always did this. He let her throw blows and kicks in his direction, but rarely did more than leap out of her way. This annoyed Batgirl beyond words. She lunged for him again, and he cackled as he leapt out of the way, eyes glinting amusedly behind his mask.

"You can do better than that, Batgirl."

And that's when his back hit the floor, all the air leaving his lungs as Barbara pinned him playfully. He was about to sit up and knock her off—he could have. He was stronger than her, even if she was, to a certain extent, faster. But she just looked so happy, her giddy grin flashing down at him along with those loose curls of vibrant hair. She had always loved teasing him.

Dick waited for the monitor to beep and the system droned, "_Nightwing, fail._"

Barbara sprung off of him and the girls all cheered. She flipped her hair and pretended to be humble. "Oh, please. You're all too kind. Really, stop, you're embarrassing me."

Everyone laughed as Barbara leaned forwards to grab onto Nightwing's hand and haul him to his feet. "Good job, Batgirl." He tried to keep his smile at the 'friendly' level, instead of his 'adoring' smile. He really tried.

She noticed. He could tell, because her triumphant smirk dissolved and she looked away, trying to look distracted, laughing at something Karen had said.

Nightwing accepted the sympathetic claps and hits on the shoulder from Mal and Impulse and the rest of the team. Barbara pretended not to notice that he was still looking at her like _that_.

"Hey, _jefe, _did you let her win?" Jaime asked, his eyes narrowed in amusement.

Nightwing merely smirked in response, and the guys laughed.

"Don't tell her." Bart advised.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Impulse." Dick said casually. But the words of their last _real_ private conversation still rung in his ears, making his head spin and his heart ache.

_"Hey Barb?"_

_"Yeah Dick?"_

_"I love you."_

_"I know, buddy. I know."_

* * *

**Hey. I'm sorry if I did anything wrong with the characters, or if anything seemed a bit off. But I always imagined Nightwing's attitude towards Batgirl as being adoring and playful, spoiling her on the team and letting her get away with teasing him speechless, but still putting up a good fight to keep her out of danger. Anyways, thanks for reading. If I get ten reviews by the end of the week, I'll post on Saturday.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer—this isn't mine. I'll let you guys know when DC hands over the rights. (Yeah right.)**

**A/N—Sorry guys, I know I haven't posted in a while! See, I wrote a chapter for Intrinsic and then my stupid computer didn't save the story. So, while I'm REWRITING the entire chapter for Intrinsic, enjoy another story where our favorite red-head torments the infamous Wing-nut.**

* * *

Barbara crept up behind Nightwing, her lower lip clamped between her teeth in an effort to stay as quiet as possible. She was wearing a plain white string bikini under a thin, worn white shirt, and her wet hair was loose around her shoulders. She had just toweled off from a swim in Happy Harbor with Karen and Cassie, and had come back to Mount Justice to see how the reconstruction was going. Nightwing had been multi-tasking, mapping out plans for the team's next mission while helping straighten up the wreckage of the cave. Barbara had seen how busy and stressed he was, so she had offered to help him with the plan.

Dick had claimed that 'the guys have it under control,' and for her to 'take some time off,' which, as harmless as it may have seemed, really rubbed Barbara the wrong way. As he had walked away, she had nearly said, "Sure, you and the guys go do all the hard work and heavy lifting. I'll be sure to have dinner on the table when you get home." She hadn't said that—she had muttered it scathingly to his turned back. Big difference.

So, intentionally doing the exact opposite of what he wanted, Barbara had put on a swim suit and an old t-shirt, and agreed to go to the beach with a few of the girls. She and Karen had been having a long, complaining discussion about how Dick, Mal, and Conner refused to stop working, and Barbara, seeing Garfield's sandcastle, was struck by a sudden idea.

And here she was—in what used to be the training/debriefing room, a few yards behind Nightwing, armed with a bucket full of icy-cold ocean water. Mal saw her coming, and his eyes widened in shock. Don't do it, BG. He seemed to silently plead, but Barbara ignored him. Conner, who had heard her coming the minute she stepped inside the wreckage, just smirked. He was getting as sick of Nightwing as she was.

Barbara leapt soundlessly the last few yards, until she was literally two feet away from the boss. Nightwing, perceptive, raised-by-the-dark-night, and impossible to sneak up on, was too absorbed in data files to even glance her way as he angled the projections into mid-air in the middle of the room, still talking.

"—Routes through both Biyalya and Uganda lead to trade routes passed known boom tube hotspots, so alpha shouldn't have much trouble following along with the plan from then on out. Points A, B, and C are primary data bases located in Biyalya, but only alpha and beta will engage in combat, considering Miss Martian's liabilities where Psimon is concerned, and—"

Splash!

Nightwing shouted as the icy water splashed over his head, soaking his hair and costume. He looked back and saw Barbara clutching Garfield's yellow beach bucket, a triumphant and amused smile spreading across her face. The laughter of most of the team echoed around what was left of the cave, increasing as Nightwing shook his hair out like a wet dog. "Oh, when I get my hands on—" Nightwing's growling, deadly bat-voice was quickly cut off as he turned to face the giddy, giggling red-head.

Barbara smirked and moved the hand holding the bucket to her right hip. To the rest of the team's shock, horror, and amazement, Barbara was completely fearless at the prospect of having to face a cold, angry, wet member of the bat-family.

Mal started laughing, like he always did when there was tension between the two protégés of Batman. Barbara was smirking cockily and Nightwing—was actually starting to smile.

It was uncanny. Had any other member of the team dumped a bucket of ice-cold ocean water over Nightwing's head, (which no one else would ever have dared to do) they would have suffered weeks and weeks of training overtime, plus lectures about respect and maturity and all the most boring missions assigned to them.

But when Dick was looking at Barbara, even a picture of her, or hearing her voice over the Intercom, his eyes softened behind his mask. The muscles under his shoulder blades, the ones that always seemed to be as tense and as hard as rocks, immediately relaxed at the sound of her voice. His fists would uncurl, his expression smooth over, and his tone would suddenly be soft and gentle, even when he was reprimanding her for a mission gone wrong or backtalk.

Dick's voice would never be patronizing when he spoke to Barbara, and he didn't treat her like a child—however, everyone on the team, even the younger kids had noticed the change in his voice every time he spoke to Batgirl.

Now, his hair dripping and his mouth slightly agape, Barbara takes a step back nervously. She holds up her hands when she sees that grin, a sign of surrender as he stalks towards her slowly, arms open. "Come here Batgirl. The water's great."

"Ah, no, get off of me!" She shrieked, squirming out of his grasp.

"Aw, can't you give your childhood friend a hug, Barb?" He asked, shaking out his hair and splattering her with cold water. She sprung back gracefully and leapt into some sort of elaborate gymnastics routine none of them had any hope of describing, which Nightwing promptly followed.

As the two bats chased each other, laughing and circling and dodging each other, Mal face-palmed. "Conner," He called over his shoulder at the retreating clone, "Maybe we should all take some time off." He jabbed his thumb in Dick and Barbara's direction. "The bats are sparring. This is going to take a while."

Conner looked over and shrugged, following Mal out of the room. They left the two alone, the only sounds; splashes and child-like yells and taunting demands for surrender. And laughter. There was plenty of that.

* * *

**A/N—sorry if this story seems a little rushed, guys, I really wanted to post something today because it's been so long since I updated! Let me know what you think. Hit or miss?**


End file.
